‘Fishbone,’ said Caleb.
‘Nurker? He once killed six trolls with a—’
‘Choked on a fishbone in his gruel. I thought you knew. Sorry.’
Cohen stared at him. And then at his sword. And then at the guards. For a moment there was silence, broken only by the sound of the rain.
‘Y’know, lads,’ he said, in a voice so suddenly full of weariness that Mr Saveloy felt a pit opening up, here, at the moment of triumph, ‘I was goin’ to chop your heads off. But . . . what’s the point, eh? I mean, when you get right down to it, why bother? What sort of difference does it make?’
The guards still stared straight ahead. But their eyes were widening.
Mr Saveloy turned.
‘You’ll end up dead anyway, sooner or later,’ Cohen went on. ‘Well, that’s about it. You live your life best way you can and then it don’t actually matter, ‘cos you’re dead—’
‘Er. Cohen?’ said Mr Saveloy.
‘I mean, look at me. Been chopping heads off my whole life and what’ve I got to show for it?’
‘Cohen . . . ‘
The guards weren’t just staring now. Their faces were dragging themselves into very creditable grimaces of fear. ‘Cohen?’
‘Yeah, what?’
‘I think you should look round, Cohen.’
Cohen turned.
Half a dozen red warriors were advancing up the street. The crowd had pulled right back and were watching in silent terror.
Then a voice shouted: ‘Extended Duration To The Red Army!’
Cries rose up here and there in the crowd. A young woman raised her hand in a clenched fist.
‘Advance Necessarily With The People While Retaining Due Regard For Traditions!’
Others joined her.
‘Deserved Correction To Enemies!’
‘I’ve lost Mr Bunny!’
The red giants clonked to a halt.
‘Look at them!’ said Mr Saveloy. ‘They’re not trolls! They move like some kind of engine! Doesn’t that interest you?’
‘No,’ said Cohen, vacantly. ‘Abstract thinking is not a major aspect of the barbarian mental process. Now then, where was I?’ He sighed. ‘Oh, yes. You two . . . you’d rather die than betray your Emperor, would you?
The two men were rigid with fear now.
Cohen raised his sword.
Mr Saveloy took a deep breath, grabbed Cohen’s sword arm and shouted:
‘Then open the gates and let him through!’
There was a moment of utter silence.
Mr Saveloy nudged Cohen.
‘Go on,’ he hissed. ‘Act like an Emperor!’
‘What . . . you mean giggle, have people tortured, that sort of thing? Blow that!’
‘No! Act like an Emperor ought to act!’
Cohen glared at Saveloy. Then he turned to the guards.
‘Well done,’ he said. ‘Your loyalty does you . . . wossname . . . credit. Keep on like this and I can see it’s promotion for both of you. Now let us all go inside or I will have my flowerpot men chop off your feet so you’ll have to kneel in the gutter while you’re looking for your head.’
The men looked at one another, threw down their swords and tried to kowtow.
‘And you can bloody well get up, too,’ said Cohen, in a slightly nicer tone of voice. ‘Mr Saveloy?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m Emperor now, am I?’
‘The . . . earth soldiers seem to be on our side. The people think you’ve won. We’re all alive. I’d say we’ve won, yes.’
‘If I’m Emperor, I can tell everyone what to do, right?’
‘Oh, indeed.’
‘Properly. You know. Scrolls and stuff. Buggers in uniform blowing trumpets and saying. “This is what he wants you to do.” ‘
‘Ah. You want to make a proclamation.’
‘Yeah. No more of this bloody kowtowing. It makes me squirm. No kowtowing by anyone to anyone, all right? If anyone sees me they can salute, or maybe give me some money. But none of this banging your head on the ground stuff. It gives me the willies. Now, dress that up in proper writing.’
‘Right away. And—’
‘Hang on, haven’t finished yet,’ Cohen bit his lip in unaccustomed cogitation, as the red warriors lurched to a stop. ‘Yeah. You can add that I’m letting all prisoners go free, unless they’ve done something really bad. Like attempted poisoning, for a start. You can work out the details. All torturers to have their heads cut off. And every, peasant can have a free pig, something like that. I’ll leave you to put in all the proper curly bits about “by order” and stuff.’
Cohen looked down at the guards.
‘Get up, I said. I swear, the next bastard that kisses the ground in front of me is gonna get kicked in the antique chicken coops. OK? Now open the gates.’
The crowd cheered. As the Horde stepped inside the Forbidden City they followed, in a sort of cross between a revolutionary charge and a respectful walk.
The red warriors stood outside. One of them raised a terracotta foot, which groaned a little, and walked towards the Wall until it bumped into it.
The warrior staggered drunkenly for a while and then managed to get within a yard or two of the Wall without colliding with it.
It raised a finger and wrote, shakily, in red dust that turned to a kind of paint on the wet plaster:
HELP HELP ITS ME IM OUT HERE ON THEE PLAIN HELP I CAN’T GET THIS BLODY ARMER OFF.
The crowd surged along behind Cohen, shouting and singing. If he’d had a surfboard, he could have ridden on it. The rain drummed heavily on the roof and poured into the courtyards.
‘Why’re they all so excited?’ he said.
‘They think you’re going to sack the palace,’ said Mr Saveloy. ‘They’ve heard about barbarians, you see. They want some of it. Anyway, they like the idea about the pig.’
‘Hey, you!’ shouted Cohen to a boy struggling past under the weight of a huge vase. ‘Get your thieving paws off my stuff! That’s valuable, that is! It’s a . . a . . .’
‘It’s S’ang Dynasty,’ said Mr Saveloy.
‘That’s right,’ said the vase.
‘That’s a S’ang Dynasty, that is! Put it back! And you lot back there—’ He turned and waved his sword. ‘Get those shoes off! You’re scratching the floor! Look at the state of it already!’
‘You never bothered about the floor yesterday,’ Truckle grumbled.
‘ ‘Tweren’t my floor then.’
‘Yes, it was,’ said Mr Saveloy.
‘Not properly,’ said Cohen. ‘Rite of conquest, that’s the thing. Blood. People understand blood. You just walk in and take over and no-one takes it seriously. But seas of blood . . . Everyone understands that.’
‘Mountains of skulls,’ said Truckle approvingly.
‘Look at history,’ said Cohen. ‘Whenever you – Hey, you, the man with the hat, that’s my . . .’
‘Inlaid mahogany Shibo Yangcong-san table,’ murmured Mr Saveloy.
‘—so put it back, d’you hear? Yes, whenever you comes across a king where everyone says, “Oo, he was a good king all right,” you can bet your sandals he was a great big bearded bastard who broke heads a lot and laughed about it. Hey? But some king who just passed decent little laws and read books and tried to look intelligent . . . “Oh,” they say, “oh, he was all right, a bit wet, not what I’d call a proper king.” That’s people for you.’
Mr Saveloy sighed.
Cohen grinned at him and slapped him on the back so hard he stumbled into two women trying to carry off a bronze statue of Ly Tin Wheedle.
‘Can’t quite face it, Teach, can you? Can’t get your mind round it? Don’t worry about it. Basically, you ain’t a barbarian. Put the damn statue back, missus, or you’ll feel the flat of my sword, so you will!’
‘But I thought we could do it without anyone getting hurt. By using our brains.’
‘Can’t. History don’t work like that. Blood first, then brains.’
‘Mountains of skulls,’ said Truckle.
‘There’s got to be a better way than fighting,’ said Mr Saveloy.
‘Yep. Lots of ’em. Only none of ’em work. Caleb, take those . . . those . . .’
‘—fine Bhong jade miniatures—’ muttered Mr Saveloy.
‘—take them off that feller. He’s got one under his hat.’
Another set of carved doors was swung open. This room was already crowded, but the people shuffled backwards as the doors parted and tried to look keen while avoiding catching Cohen’s eye.
As they pulled away they left Six Beneficent Winds standing all alone. The court had become very good at this manoeuvre.
‘Mountains of skulls,’ said Truckle, not a man to let go in a hurry.
‘Er. We saw the Red Army rise out of the ground, er, just as the legend foretold. Er. Truly you are the preincarnation of One Sun Mirror.’
The little taxman had the decency to look embarrassed. As speeches went it was on a dramatic level with the one that traditionally began, ‘As you know, your father – the king—’ Besides, he’d never believed in legends up to now – not even the one about the peasant who every year filed a scrupulously honest tax return.